Ozu Shapes Mishima Yukiko’s Tokyo Competition Title ‘Two Cigarettes, Three Nights’

Known for her dark relationship dramas, including the 2017 multiple-award-winner “Dear Etranger,” Mishima Yukiko has taken a different approach with her latest film, “Two Cigarettes, Three Nights,” which is in competition at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival. Based on a 2014 novel by Chihaya Akane, it stars Matsuoka Mayu as Kanna, a picture book […] Mishima Yukiko on her Tokyo Film Festival competition title ‘Two Cigarettes, Three Nights’ and the pull of Ozu Yasujiro. Known for her dark relationship dramas, including the 2017 multiple-award-winner “Dear Etranger,” Mishima Yukiko has taken a different approach with her latest film, “Two Cigarettes, Three Nights,” which is in competition at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival.

Based on a 2014 novel by Chihaya Akane, it stars Matsuoka Mayu as Kanna, a picture book illustrator who has tired of her nice-but-boring live-in boyfriend (Inoue Yuki) while having nothing but a physical connection with her cynical married lover (Nakajima Ayumu). Then a close friend from her college days, Haseo (Narita Ryo), reenters her life after a gap of seven years and once again becomes her confidant. Now a salesman for a drug company and still single, Haseo is something of a womanizer, though he keeps his relationship with Kanna strictly platonic. Shot